Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 harlokin wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
There's a fair few people saying that of they wanted to promote smaller games use lower points or the community should have made that move already.

Simply put nobody would play smaller points because there's a large crowd of players who are fixated on "bigger is better" and like to see a big round number. There were threads here saying people would just play 2300 etc after the points changes because they like having more stuff. Same for the 2000+1 crowd.

Reducing army size takes options away and allows for more meaningful/challenging list creation, especially on smaller boards. But if they'd used a smaller number for "normal" people wouldn't have liked it seemingly, instead saying the game size is the same points but they've recosted, it creates some weird fallacy in players minds that the game size is the same but units are going to be more balanced.

While that is certainly true, GW did not simply double the points cost of all the units and equipment, they took the time to hamfistedly feth around with the relative points too. That latter part is what is inexplicable, and is what many are upset about.

Also if the goal was indeed more granularity why are dexes now litered with exemples like conscript Infantry squads 5ppm

Or why does cross comparison not count, considering especially the case of cultists, which can now virtually not be affected anymore with traits and shall cost more.

Hamfisted is not even the word i'd use for it anymore.

Because GW doesn't want people to use conscripts. The why for it you can pick from a list starting with they want it that way and ending with in 6 months there is a campaign addon for the IG, which would make the game broken if they stayed at 4 points.

Non of the new units or units that GW talked about in the pre 9th articles got really bad treatment, aside for DE. But DE seem to be a faction that is not going to work in 9th without a new codex

Now if GW wasn't GW, they would put out the DE book first, but I think we are all fully expecting marines and necron before DE, and maybe orcs too. If DE players are really lucky they will get some rules over lay in a WD.

Spoletta wrote:

Spoiler:

 vict0988 wrote:

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:
I think they are more balanced then people realize. Do not I think they are perfect? No. I'm sure some adjustments will have to be made. But the way people are acting when they, for the most part, have no idea how these changes will actually affect the game is ridiculous.

How well did the Iron Hands "wait and see" approach work? Not at all, they were busted after being nerfed the first time and there were internet monkies both on Dakka and on Youtube screaming that we should let things shake out and not even give them the first nerf, if it weren't for constant internet whinge then Iron Hands would have been unbeatable until the end of 8th and then none of the GW apologists would apologize for getting it wrong just like nobody admitted they were wrong about how necessary an immediate and massive nerf was to IH when the supplement came out. Stop trying to make the game stay terrible, because it is terrible, it might not be for Thousand Sons, it might not be for Necrons, but for a lot of factions internal balance is super bad right now and I think we're soon to find out that external balance is really freaking bad as well.

All you need to do to show that internal balance is bad is S+2 AP-4 D2 = S+1 AP-3 D1 on the same model. All you need to do to show that external balance is bad is compare the AM Infantry Squad nerf with the CE Guardian nerf knowing which unit was better among those two before the changes. GW do not have some secret sauce and the changes are not secretly balanced, they're bad and I think you are being overly optimistic about how well designed they were.

The "Wait and see" approach works many more times than the "We are doomed" one.

For example, despite all the whines about SM being OP (mines included), those that are getting a few number of games are little by little getting into the mindset that they are not even top tier.

When so many things change at a time, defining what is balanced and what is not is a huge leap into the dark.

Sure, you can find some weird costs here and there, like grots and guardians, but 99% of the points assigned are in that area where they could be potentially reaonsable depending on how the game shapes up.

I haven't been able to get any 9th edition games in because of the current situation and my work schedule, but none of the battle reports I've seen support this. The only time loyalists don't look top tier is when the loyalist players either take suboptimal units or seem to hold back. Everything points to loyalists continuing to be the army to beat in 9th, the lists may change, but with the ridiculous amount of options they have they won't have any trouble replacing the few things that actually got a meaningful nerf.

I'm actually worried only about those obviously under costed Eradicators.

Apart from that, there are more fearsome factions out there.

The leaked chapter tactics imply that the space puppies lost OS on everything right? If that isn't so, then I'm worried about them too.

I wonder if they're doing the points rescale to try and bring "game size" into line with Sigmar so they can make both games use the same table sizes for the same points values?

This conversation is getting more and more amusing.

GW: "We're increasing points to make a smaller game size so that the game plays faster"

Dakka: "Why are they increasing the points!?"

GW: "To ... to make a smaller game so things go quicker ..."

Dakka:"What could it possibly be!? Surely it's a conspiracy!"

GW:"No - no, we just need to try and make the game faster"

Dakka: "If only they would TELL US WHY!!!!!!"




It was ALWAYS a bit of a silly premise that only going down by 100-200 points was going to make things appreciably faster, but that's literally, word for word what they said. It's clear now that the points are out that this not only failed to have the intended effect, but that they have also screwed up some balance items along the way, so we're hearing all kinds of justifications from them, but yeah. That's damage control at this point.

Bottom line - They wanted to reduce army size. They failed to reduce it by a meaningful number while also botching several other things along the way, and now they are trying to spin the decision.

Spoletta wrote:
I'm actually worried only about those obviously under costed Eradicators.

Apart from that, there are more fearsome factions out there.

The leaked chapter tactics imply that the space puppies lost OS on everything right? If that isn't so, then I'm worried about them too.

Okay once again which factions and why?

Those with good and durable OS units. Custodes first.

Good and durable obsec units? You mean like intercessors with transhuman physiology slapped on them?

Also it looks like Necrons have a dynasty that gives everything in their army obsec. Sounds like that'll be the go to dynasty.

And although Custodes have tough obsec, the low model count will hurt them. Never enough bodies.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
Good and durable obsec units? You mean like intercessors with transhuman physiology slapped on them?

Also it looks like Necrons have a dynasty that gives everything in their army obsec. Sounds like that'll be the go to dynasty.

And although Custodes have tough obsec, the low model count will hurt them. Never enough bodies.

Assault intercessors are still just 10 MEQ wounds and they have move 6". They can use impulsors, but those are quite a good amount of points not shooting at me then.

Custodes have obsec on the shield captains. Hard to kill, dangerous, easy to hide and highly mobile. They were already incredibily good in 8th CA, in 9h they will be meta defining.

Spoletta wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
Good and durable obsec units? You mean like intercessors with transhuman physiology slapped on them?

Also it looks like Necrons have a dynasty that gives everything in their army obsec. Sounds like that'll be the go to dynasty.

And although Custodes have tough obsec, the low model count will hurt them. Never enough bodies.

Assault intercessors are still just 10 MEQ wounds and they have move 6". They can use impulsors, but those are quite a good amount of points not shooting at me then.

Custodes have obsec on the shield captains. Hard to kill, dangerous, easy to hide and highly mobile. They were already incredibily good in 8th CA, in 9h they will be meta defining.

Depends on your army as charictor protection is way less abusive than it was in 8th by a long way.

Tycho wrote:

I wonder if they're doing the points rescale to try and bring "game size" into line with Sigmar so they can make both games use the same table sizes for the same points values?

This conversation is getting more and more amusing.

GW: "We're increasing points to make a smaller game size so that the game plays faster"

Dakka: "Why are they increasing the points!?"

GW: "To ... to make a smaller game so things go quicker ..."

Dakka:"What could it possibly be!? Surely it's a conspiracy!"

GW:"No - no, we just need to try and make the game faster"

Dakka: "If only they would TELL US WHY!!!!!!"




It was ALWAYS a bit of a silly premise that only going down by 100-200 points was going to make things appreciably faster, but that's literally, word for word what they said. It's clear now that the points are out that this not only failed to have the intended effect, but that they have also screwed up some balance items along the way, so we're hearing all kinds of justifications from them, but yeah. That's damage control at this point.

Bottom line - They wanted to reduce army size. They failed to reduce it by a meaningful number while also botching several other things along the way, and now they are trying to spin the decision.

So... It's a conspiracy? But I seriously doubt they intended to reduce game time since the expected game length in the BRB is the same as it was in 8th, and that was no doubt written long before any marketing blurb.

Spoletta wrote:
I'm actually worried only about those obviously under costed Eradicators.

Apart from that, there are more fearsome factions out there.

The leaked chapter tactics imply that the space puppies lost OS on everything right? If that isn't so, then I'm worried about them too.

ITT: SM players are given psychiatric counseling for their persecution complex.

So... It's a conspiracy? But I seriously doubt they intended to reduce game time since the expected game length in the BRB is the same as it was in 8th, and that was no doubt written long before any marketing blurb.

They said it in multiple places and not just in a marketing blurb. The issue is, it isn't number of models adding to game length. It's strats and rerolls (and to a slightly lesser extent weight of dice in general). Those are core mechanics so they aren't touching those. What's that leave?

The only legitimate step they took to make the game faster was the overwatch change. They added in enough things elsewhere that 9th plays about the same as 8th once you get used to the rules. The morale phase can sometimes make it slightly longer but that's rare so far in my experience. So reducing the model count was one of the things I think they were looking at to at least not make the game LONGER, because 9th has enough in it that it is definitely not faster than 8th. And since game length was one of the biggest things they were claiming to try and tackle, again, what's left? They did exactly what they said they were going to do, and increased points to try and make armies smaller.

They just screwed it up. I really don't get all the "it has to be THIS! - NO! It's actually THAT!" kind of comments. They very plainly and clearly said what they intended to do, did it, and had it come out poorly. I mean, everyone's always screaming about how "dumb" and "stupid", and "bad" GW is, and here's a case where they very clearly appear to have made a legitimate mistake (will happily retract that if the points make sense once we get the new codexes), and Dakka thinks the only logical explanation is some kind of ulterior motive ...

 vict0988 wrote:

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:
I think they are more balanced then people realize. Do not I think they are perfect? No. I'm sure some adjustments will have to be made. But the way people are acting when they, for the most part, have no idea how these changes will actually affect the game is ridiculous.

How well did the Iron Hands "wait and see" approach work? Not at all, they were busted after being nerfed the first time and there were internet monkies both on Dakka and on Youtube screaming that we should let things shake out and not even give them the first nerf, if it weren't for constant internet whinge then Iron Hands would have been unbeatable until the end of 8th and then none of the GW apologists would apologize for getting it wrong just like nobody admitted they were wrong about how necessary an immediate and massive nerf was to IH when the supplement came out. Stop trying to make the game stay terrible, because it is terrible, it might not be for Thousand Sons, it might not be for Necrons, but for a lot of factions internal balance is super bad right now and I think we're soon to find out that external balance is really freaking bad as well.

All you need to do to show that internal balance is bad is S+2 AP-4 D2 = S+1 AP-3 D1 on the same model. All you need to do to show that external balance is bad is compare the AM Infantry Squad nerf with the CE Guardian nerf knowing which unit was better among those two before the changes. GW do not have some secret sauce and the changes are not secretly balanced, they're bad and I think you are being overly optimistic about how well designed they were.

The problem is we have no Tournie info to go off of, most people are playing the incorrectly (new rules being forgotten, or people habitually doing things that are now not allowed.)

For example I have watched about 10-15 9th games. I have yet to see people using terrain fully. Either the new rules are forgotten or they apply them haphazardly. Vision blocking terrain, is conspicuously absent on most boards. People still pick up single dice from a group and reroll them. There are mistakes all over the place.

For future reference if something seems ridiculous and is clearly unbalanced I probably agree. Should grots and cultists be 6 points? Probably not. But one thing I do know is there are only 2 armies in the game that can DS large blobs turn 1, that's Orks and and TS. Everyone else has to wait till turn 2, or is limited to 10 models, and they are usually expensive models at that.

I can think of a couple situations where having an 80 point unit (20 cultists/grots) shut down 2 tanks worth 300+ points, for 2-3 rounds MIGHT be a cause to increase the points.

Tycho wrote:

So... It's a conspiracy? But I seriously doubt they intended to reduce game time since the expected game length in the BRB is the same as it was in 8th, and that was no doubt written long before any marketing blurb.

They said it in multiple places and not just in a marketing blurb. The issue is, it isn't number of models adding to game length. It's strats and rerolls (and to a slightly lesser extent weight of dice in general). Those are core mechanics so they aren't touching those. What's that leave?

The only legitimate step they took to make the game faster was the overwatch change. They added in enough things elsewhere that 9th plays about the same as 8th once you get used to the rules. The morale phase can sometimes make it slightly longer but that's rare so far in my experience. So reducing the model count was one of the things I think they were looking at to at least not make the game LONGER, because 9th has enough in it that it is definitely not faster than 8th. And since game length was one of the biggest things they were claiming to try and tackle, again, what's left? They did exactly what they said they were going to do, and increased points to try and make armies smaller.

They just screwed it up. I really don't get all the "it has to be THIS! - NO! It's actually THAT!" kind of comments. They very plainly and clearly said what they intended to do, did it, and had it come out poorly. I mean, everyone's always screaming about how "dumb" and "stupid", and "bad" GW is, and here's a case where they very clearly appear to have made a legitimate mistake (will happily retract that if the points make sense once we get the new codexes), and Dakka thinks the only logical explanation is some kind of ulterior motive ...

Twitch streams and warhammer community articles are nothing but marketing.

You are assuming incompetence where others assume malevolence, Hanlon's razor. I'm not so sympathetic, not when there are reasons for the so-called malevolence.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:
I can think of a couple situations where having an 80 point unit (20 cultists/grots) shut down 2 tanks worth 300+ points, for 2-3 rounds MIGHT be a cause to increase the points.

Except that's not the case anymore, tanks can shoot in combat and have blast weapons to clear out hoards at range with ease. No need to triple down on the nerfs. Even 8th wasn't as lopsided as 9th looks like it will be, since you were supposed to use your own troops to screen for your tanks, but that might not be he case anymore. I haven't played enough 9th to really tell.

 Eipi10 wrote:

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:
I can think of a couple situations where having an 80 point unit (20 cultists/grots) shut down 2 tanks worth 300+ points, for 2-3 rounds MIGHT be a cause to increase the points.

Except that's not the case anymore, tanks can shoot in combat and have blast weapons to clear out hoards at range with ease. No need to triple down on the nerfs. Even 8th wasn't as lopsided as 9th looks like it will be, since you were supposed to use your own troops to screen for your tanks, but that might not be he case anymore. I haven't played enough 9th to really tell.

Some tanks can shoot into combat, some can't, blast weapons can't shoot into combat. Low shot weapons like Lascannons, and Vanquisher cannons will take for ever to kill a unit of 10 models, let alone 20. Again I'm talking about turn 1 DS, with cheap models. Taking 80 to 120 point investment to shut down 300-500 points for 3-5 turns depending on luck, is a damn good deal.

Twitch streams and warhammer community articles are nothing but marketing.

Right. So, they said it literally everywhere. Not just those two places. You seem though (and apologies if you're not) to be the kind of player who likely essentially label any source from GW as "Marketing - don't listen to it". We can agree to disagree on that but if you think that lowly of them, why are you here? The fact is, there is a huge amount of evidence that GW wanted to reduce the size of armies with this and that it backfired. There's literally no evidence of anything else whether you believe the sources or think everything is some kind of shadowy marketing play.

On top of that, any of the stories that this was about something different have come from play testers after the fact. Play testers who often weren't actually involved in the points adjustments, had no prior knowledge of what they would be, no knowledge of why it was done outside of the stated reason, and simply feel a need to try and justify the results somehow. So again, what's more likely here?

You are assuming incompetence where others assume malevolence, Hanlon's razor. I'm not so sympathetic, not when there are reasons for the so-called malevolence.

Right. Malevolence. They really got us this time. They set the trap and we walked right into their plan! Their evil plan to make us ... buy fewer models? Yep! Sounds pretty evil to me. Definitely NOT a matter of having made a mistake. They clearly hatched a evil plan to make everyone buy FEWER models and thereby potentially hurt their own sales. That's the definition of evil ...

Serious question for you - You clearly seem to think this was an evil plan of some sort. Walk me through it.

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:
The problem is we have no Tournie info to go off of, most people are playing the incorrectly (new rules being forgotten, or people habitually doing things that are now not allowed.)

I would argue you shouldn't need tournament data to see the obvious, like how broken IH were when they were first released or how much of a failure the new 9th pts are at doing internal and external balance right. I want GW to make a hotfix so we can start testing the system for real, because if we don't get a real first shot at new pts before CA21 then 9th will never become balanced before it is replaced by 10th. 9th is much less radically different than 8th was to 7th, GW pretending to have been hit in the head and equalising pts for options that are clearly not the same value was an insult and should be corrected ASAP.

For example I have watched about 10-15 9th games. I have yet to see people using terrain fully. Either the new rules are forgotten or they apply them haphazardly. Vision blocking terrain, is conspicuously absent on most boards. People still pick up single dice from a group and reroll them. There are mistakes all over the place.

For future reference if something seems ridiculous and is clearly unbalanced I probably agree. Should grots and cultists be 6 points? Probably not. But one thing I do know is there are only 2 armies in the game that can DS large blobs turn 1, that's Orks and and TS. Everyone else has to wait till turn 2, or is limited to 10 models, and they are usually expensive models at that.

The re-roll Stratagem only affects one wound roll or hit roll AFAIK the only time the Stratagem affects multiple dice is when you make a charge or psychic roll. Necrons can teleport and infiltrate, SM can infiltrate, Craftworlds and CSM can move twice, but worse than all the above, Guardsmen have a guaranteed move twice effect, unlike CSM which need a psychic power to go off, but the unit that has access to automatic move twice got a smaller nerf than the one with a 50/50 chance of moving twice while having to spend a much more expensive HQ doing it. So while some sorry Ork player spends his Psyker to drop 30 Gretchin on an objective 7/10 times, Astra Militarum can march 60 on top of any objectives within 19" of their objective zone with 60 bodies turn 1. Gretchin did not deserve this nerf, no way in hell, 67% is an absurd nerf, especially considering the blast rule which ensures hordes can only ever be anti-meta in the first place.

I can think of a couple situations where having an 80 point unit (20 cultists/grots) shut down 2 tanks worth 300+ points, for 2-3 rounds MIGHT be a cause to increase the points.

That's not a bad hypothesis, maybe that's worth increasing them by as much as the everpresent Intercessor (15%) or if you're really super-duper scared, let's nerf it by more than double and put it at 4 pts (+33%). But it's not 4 pts, it's 5 pts and it is not reasonable, it does not make sense, it is not fair and the vast majority of Grots in people's collections will gather dust. Maybe we'll see a list with as many as 30 Grots do well, but those will be a rare sight and the people that want to run more than that can just go sulk because GW wanted to shake things up without using the absurdly generous time given to them by playtesters and instead had them focus on projects far out in the future.

You need about 500 organized logged playtests or maybe a couple of tens of thousands poorly organized and logged tests to get pts 99% right and that's after setting a decent foundation based on math or previous experience. That might sound like a massive amount of playtesting, but 50 playtesters doing 2 games a week, that's 5 weeks worth of playtesting, is that too much to ask for GW's flagship product? This wouldn't cost GW a penny, they just needed to start things a little earlier and organize the testing of the edition to ensure a minimum of units slipped through the cracks. But what I'm complaining about isn't that GW failed to do this, because they've never done this before, I'm complaining about never even having laid a foundation on which to balance the game. They created what must have been a deliberately unbalanced pts foundation and the sooner they give us a real shot an alpha set of pts we can start playtesting the game for real and GW will then be able to deliver us a beta set of pts, GW should not be selling a pre-alpha product.

Grots are not worth 5 pts if Guardsmen are worth 5 pts. You have to realise that flamers and plasma guns should not cost the same pts after plasma guns costing more in 8th and yet being taken more in 8th. The majority of pts in 9th are wrong if you only think it's the obvious minority that is wrong you'll be in for a surprise. Trying to stick to 2000 pts and staying away from decimal numbers was silly. The only good move they made was moving towards clean numbers like 5 and 0 for units that cost 100+ pts, the problem is they have put units that should be 32 or 33 at either 30 or 35 and weapons that should be 1-4 pts at either 0 or 5. I have complained about units costing 566, but only because I know for a fact that GW doesn't know whether the cost is right and because putting it at 550, 575, 570 or at the very least 565 would all end up with a unit that is more or less exactly as good regardless. A unit that is underpowered at 35 might be overpowered at 30, all the talk of more room for balancing is gak if you ignore 8/10 numbers in our number system. Aesthetics are cool, but not at a cost to balance, making the math easier is silly, either you use a calculator or you like doing math. If you use a calculator it's no big trouble using decimals or pts in increments of 1 instead of 5 and if you like doing math then using decimals and pts in increments of 1 instead of 5 is just added fun.

Beardedragon wrote:
whats the actual reason behind the over all point increase?

First of all there seems to be little incentive to do any kind of small 500 point battles. I know 500 isnt really the norm any way but it could be nice to do a small last battle that doesnt take too long. but with these point changes you can barely even make an army that makes sense.


But over all, what is the reason? did GW think battles took too long? I never thought it was a problem personally.

To give them more room on the scale. It doesn't matter, overall, if your 40 space marines are 2000 points or 4,000 (the total point scale is somewhat arbitrary and hopefully, theoretically based on some initial unit for comparison) vs 80ish orks at the same 2,000 or 4,000 points. But if they're 4,000 points then they have a lot more room for variation on points cost of upgrades, options and the like. In a 2,000 point army scale the 1.5 point rifle has to be 1 or 2 points. In a 4,000 point army scale, its now a 3 point rifle so you don't have to worry about rounding this one down because it's not as good as that technically also 1.5 point rifle that's just a skosh better and has to be rounded up.

 vict0988 wrote:

I would argue you shouldn't need tournament data to see the obvious, like how broken IH were when they were first released or how much of a failure the new 9th pts are at doing internal and external balance right. I want GW to make a hotfix so we can start testing the system for real, because if we don't get a real first shot at new pts before CA21 then 9th will never become balanced before it is replaced by 10th. 9th is much less radically different than 8th was to 7th, GW pretending to have been hit in the head and equalising pts for options that are clearly not the same value was an insult and should be corrected ASAP.

Points are more than fine to test the edition. The fact that there are a few outrageous ones in the list, doesn't make the whole point list invalid. Sure there are about a dozen point values that you really have no idea what they were thinking, but it is a dozen out of many hundreds. Luckily, those points are weird because they are too high, not too low, and an old adagium of gaming will tell you that an UP unit will not break the game, an OP one will. There is nothing game breaking as you claim in CA2020.

There are some clearly overcosted units/weapons in the list? Yes. Are they a major problem? Not at all. It will hurt those that played thematic lists around those models, and will put a little handicap on the factions that have these models, but in the grand scheme of things, the game is more than fine and ready to be played.

Did we feel that they were a bit lazy on some factions? Yeah, but nothing more than that.

I play 4 factions, Bugs, noons, thousand sons and dark angels. I've been making a few lists with them, and nothing feels over the top or automatically bad. They actually feel prettty balanced at the moment. The only sore thumb are the eradicators.

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:
Some tanks can shoot into combat, some can't, blast weapons can't shoot into combat. Low shot weapons like Lascannons, and Vanquisher cannons will take for ever to kill a unit of 10 models, let alone 20. Again I'm talking about turn 1 DS, with cheap models. Taking 80 to 120 point investment to shut down 300-500 points for 3-5 turns depending on luck, is a damn good deal.

10 guardsmen CAN kill a knight castellan in 1 turn of shooting, so why is this 50 point unit able to shut down a 700 point one?

Just because a unit CAN doesn't mean it WILL. Psychic powers need to go off, screens need to be avoided, charges need to be made. You are spending 100pts for something that might only have a 20% chance of shutting down a 400pt model for 1 turn with the new fall back stratagem; it's more like a quadruple nerf. It's not a good deal, even in 8th it was an above average deal; a good deal doesn't depend on luck.

Tycho wrote:

Twitch streams and warhammer community articles are nothing but marketing.

Right. So, they said it literally everywhere. Not just those two places. You seem though (and apologies if you're not) to be the kind of player who likely essentially label any source from GW as "Marketing - don't listen to it". We can agree to disagree on that but if you think that lowly of them, why are you here? The fact is, there is a huge amount of evidence that GW wanted to reduce the size of armies with this and that it backfired. There's literally no evidence of anything else whether you believe the sources or think everything is some kind of shadowy marketing play.

On top of that, any of the stories that this was about something different have come from play testers after the fact. Playtesters who often weren't actually involved in the points adjustments, had no prior knowledge of what they would be, no knowledge of why it was done outside of the stated reason, and simply feel a need to try and justify the results somehow. So again, what's more likely here?

You are assuming incompetence where others assume malevolence, Hanlon's razor. I'm not so sympathetic, not when there are reasons for the so-called malevolence.

Right. Malevolence. They really got us this time. They set the trap and we walked right into their plan! Their evil plan to make us ... buy fewer models? Yep! Sounds pretty evil to me. Definitely NOT a matter of having made a mistake. They clearly hatched a evil plan to make everyone buy FEWER models and thereby potentially hurt their own sales. That's the definition of evil ...

Serious question for you - You clearly seem to think this was an evil plan of some sort. Walk me through it.

I think everything everyone does is some form of marketing, but marketing isn't ever malicious, just don't let other people make decisions for you.

Why might playtesters "feel a need to try and justify the results somehow"? Especially when there shouldn't be anything to justify? Even more worryingly, why weren't they "actually involved in the points adjustments, had no prior knowledge of what they would be, no knowledge of why it was done outside of the stated reason"? Isn't that the point of playtesters, to be assistants to the main rules writers and so be more in the know than your average community article reader?

It seems to me and many others that GW put these playtesters up as scapegoats, gave them quarter-tested rules, ignored their feedback, and now expect them to defend these terrible rules. Those who don't defend them will not be invited back, but those who do will get even more official support from GW.

GW has been trying to take more control over the competitive market recently, and the next step in doing that is to kill it, so to speak. 9th edition will have significantly worse balance than 8th to filter out and drive away community leaders who are not totally loyal to GW and will never threaten their market share. I'm not saying 9th will be unplayable, but I am saying better balance will not be a goal of 9th in the least and it will suffer for that. TO's who stand by GW, keeping their missions and not using house rules, will be rewarded as FLG has and more. Those who don't and attempt to fix 9th's obvious flaws will be ignored and fail to grow the way officially supported tournaments grow.

Meanwhile, they can use this opportunity to make 40k more "accessible", like by making all the points a multiple of 5. I don't know which motive came first, I imagine you think it is the latter, but it doesn't matter, they are doing both.

 vipoid wrote:

Karol wrote:
Why won't GW go full battle system and not skirmish system. Would be easier to balance. Instead of trying to juggle different weapons, wargears etc Have something like a IG anti tank squad, IG anti infantry squad, and have them do specific damage to specific units. We wouldn't have to worry about scenic bases, models being modeled in certain way.

Except that we already have a game for that - it's called Apocalypse.


The real problem is that Apocalypse has been shoehorned into normal 40k. Thus, everything now has to be balanced around the existence of super-heavies, Imperial Knights, fliers, Primarchs etc. - all things which should have been confined to Apocalypse.

Fliers are ok in numbers no greater than 3. Super heavies should be capped at 1. Imperial knights either shouldnt be in there or be capped at 1. Primarchs should be at least hard capped at 1 regardless of battle size.

I honestly think these hard caps should exist for every 2000 pts of an army you have. Possibly none of these units at all until you reach the 2000 pts battles. Then the next 2000 pts you get to double it (4k pts) and so on. This would mean at 4000 pts minimum you can have up to 6 flyers, 2 super heavies (knights or otherwise) and still just 1 primarch. If it was 3750 pts it'd be 3 flyers, 1 super heavy (knights or otherwise) and 1 primarch still.

It might not be perfect but it'd still be better than 4 imperials knights with minimum guardsmen detachment for command points bs. I apologize if I've lost track of the rules but corona has made things tough and it's hard to keep track of all the various rules. I need like at least 4 books per game now.

Seriously what is it with people trying to turn 40k back into 2nd edition games with a 4k points limit.

Superheavys are a thing GW put them into the game 3 editions ago get over it.
9th is the 3rd edition with Primarchs with more to come, GW is unlikely to not want to sell as many of the next primarch model as they can so get used to seeing more of them.

Jumping to 4000 should have been step 1 in operation 'granularity*'

That way you can dodge the grot/guardsman/guardian farce and rounding to 5/10 etc doesnt look as bad

* in the words of a wise man, they keep using that word I dont think it means what they think it means

 Turnip Jedi wrote:
Jumping to 4000 should have been step 1 in operation 'granularity*'

That way you can dodge the grot/guardsman/guardian farce and rounding to 5/10 etc doesnt look as bad

* in the words of a wise man, they keep using that word I dont think it means what they think it means

Yeah i agree that would have been far less egregious that the CA2020 farce.

But I ment people seem to have some outdated idea that only 2nd edition units should be allowed with modern army sizes.
If they want to use only infantry thats what Killteam is for.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

Karol wrote:
Why won't GW go full battle system and not skirmish system. Would be easier to balance. Instead of trying to juggle different weapons, wargears etc Have something like a IG anti tank squad, IG anti infantry squad, and have them do specific damage to specific units. We wouldn't have to worry about scenic bases, models being modeled in certain way.

Except that we already have a game for that - it's called Apocalypse.


The real problem is that Apocalypse has been shoehorned into normal 40k. Thus, everything now has to be balanced around the existence of super-heavies, Imperial Knights, fliers, Primarchs etc. - all things which should have been confined to Apocalypse.

Fliers are ok in numbers no greater than 3. Super heavies should be capped at 1. Imperial knights either shouldnt be in there or be capped at 1. Primarchs should be at least hard capped at 1 regardless of battle size.

I honestly think these hard caps should exist for every 2000 pts of an army you have. Possibly none of these units at all until you reach the 2000 pts battles. Then the next 2000 pts you get to double it (4k pts) and so on. This would mean at 4000 pts minimum you can have up to 6 flyers, 2 super heavies (knights or otherwise) and still just 1 primarch. If it was 3750 pts it'd be 3 flyers, 1 super heavy (knights or otherwise) and 1 primarch still.

It might not be perfect but it'd still be better than 4 imperials knights with minimum guardsmen detachment for command points bs. I apologize if I've lost track of the rules but corona has made things tough and it's hard to keep track of all the various rules. I need like at least 4 books per game now.

I don't get why people seem to think that the sheer existence of large models means they are by definition OP. At what point would people not complain about knights? Is it just because they don't like skew lists? Then why don't orks get the same kind of hate? I mean, the dirty secret of knights is that they are pretty bad, point for point.

Ice_can wrote:
Yeah i agree that would have been far less egregious that the CA2020 farce.

But I ment people seem to have some outdated idea that only 2nd edition units should be allowed with modern army sizes.
If they want to use only infantry thats what Killteam is for.

2000 pt KT game... *shudder*

Yeah, some people freak out about my Fellblade because they think it's some kind of "super baneblade", then they realize that it takes up half my points, and they calm down. It can be pretty nasty with a -2 to be hit on it and a chaos lord standing next to though. Too bad I can't do that anymore....

Dudeface wrote:
There's a fair few people saying that of they wanted to promote smaller games use lower points or the community should have made that move already.

Simply put nobody would play smaller points because there's a large crowd of players who are fixated on "bigger is better" and like to see a big round number. There were threads here saying people would just play 2300 etc after the points changes because they like having more stuff. Same for the 2000+1 crowd.

Reducing army size takes options away and allows for more meaningful/challenging list creation, especially on smaller boards. But if they'd used a smaller number for "normal" people wouldn't have liked it seemingly, instead saying the game size is the same points but they've recosted, it creates some weird fallacy in players minds that the game size is the same but units are going to be more balanced.

Nobody is going to buy that fallacy. People want the big game because they have enough stuff for a big game. They want to "play" with all their "toys". For most people it's not that hard to collect 50ish Space Marines - or 100ish orks, or 75ish eldar, or 20-100 Nids that all worked out to about 2000 to 2500 points. I've been in the game for nearly 30 years, and my first army was the Ultramarines in 2nd Ed. There were four of us and we each picked one of the main four liveries of Space Marines. I went last and got UM. At this point I think I have about a third of the chapter, maybe more. About half the First Company, The second, enough for the third, maybe even the fourth, half the 10th company. Part of me wants to play with it all. Most of me just wants to play with one or two of every/most things Which last time I tried to write a list (that way) came out to about 3500 points, which I hated trimming to 2000-2500. If they're going to play a game, people want to play with all the pieces to get their money's worth. We can assign motives to GW all we want about how GW wants what we want them to want for the game to be played the way we think it should be, but the fact is, human nature determines how the game is played. and people want to empty the toy box when they play with toys. We've seen 20+ years of this behavior. You can pick whatever points total on whatever arbitrary scale you want, the simple truth is people generally collect an army of a certain size that has in the past floated in the 2K-3K range +/- a few side board units You can call that 500 points or you can call it 10,000 points, it doesn't matter the point is people want to play with all 50 space marines, all 80 orks, etc.

Breton wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
There's a fair few people saying that of they wanted to promote smaller games use lower points or the community should have made that move already.

Simply put nobody would play smaller points because there's a large crowd of players who are fixated on "bigger is better" and like to see a big round number. There were threads here saying people would just play 2300 etc after the points changes because they like having more stuff. Same for the 2000+1 crowd.

Reducing army size takes options away and allows for more meaningful/challenging list creation, especially on smaller boards. But if they'd used a smaller number for "normal" people wouldn't have liked it seemingly, instead saying the game size is the same points but they've recosted, it creates some weird fallacy in players minds that the game size is the same but units are going to be more balanced.

Nobody is going to buy that fallacy. People want the big game because they have enough stuff for a big game. They want to "play" with all their "toys". For most people it's not that hard to collect 50ish Space Marines - or 100ish orks, or 75ish eldar, or 20-100 Nids that all worked out to about 2000 to 2500 points. I've been in the game for nearly 30 years, and my first army was the Ultramarines in 2nd Ed. There were four of us and we each picked one of the main four liveries of Space Marines. I went last and got UM. At this point I think I have about a third of the chapter, maybe more. About half the First Company, The second, enough for the third, maybe even the fourth, half the 10th company. Part of me wants to play with it all. Most of me just wants to play with one or two of every/most things Which last time I tried to write a list (that way) came out to about 3500 points, which I hated trimming to 2000-2500. If they're going to play a game, people want to play with all the pieces to get their money's worth. We can assign motives to GW all we want about how GW wants what we want them to want for the game to be played the way we think it should be, but the fact is, human nature determines how the game is played. and people want to empty the toy box when they play with toys. We've seen 20+ years of this behavior. You can pick whatever points total on whatever arbitrary scale you want, the simple truth is people generally collect an army of a certain size that has in the past floated in the 2K-3K range +/- a few side board units You can call that 500 points or you can call it 10,000 points, it doesn't matter the point is people want to play with all 50 space marines, all 80 orks, etc.

I think his point is that people are so used to seeing 2000 pt lists that if GW wanted to call 1500 pts the standard or something it wouldn't fly. The only way they can do that is by repointing everything to be X% more expensive. Your ideas aren't incompatible, collections tend towards to 50 SM / 100 ork size and people like the idea of a 2K point army, the two fit together. Admittedly it was pretty clear how far things fell in points costs in 8th, so GW is probably hedging their bets for the early part of 9th. Although I'm not so sure about the toy box analogy, if it were true then apocalypse would be more popular.

Well it does give GW the we didn't expect people to play 2250 protection for the future, if at old 2000pts 9th is busted.

I think they did it in 8th. They never said what kind of a terrain you should use in your games, but if it wasn't very high LoS one, you may as well have been playing on an empty board.

Reducing army size. 2000 points felt like Apocalypse at the end of 8th. Hopefully GW will find some other way of buffing underperforming units besides just endlessly reducing points costs.